Rush 24/7 Morning Update: Reality Bites

Oct 6, 2017

RUSH: Twenty-five-year-old Reality Winner served in the Air Force for six years as a linguist, and then she went to work for a federal contractor connected with the NSA. In May, a day after she started the new job, she is accused of using her top-secret clearance to download an NSA analysis of Russian attempts to influence the election. She mailed it to a left-wing online publication called The Intercept.

She was arrested. She was charged with violating the Federal Espionage Act. This week, she was denied bond for the second time by U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Brian Epps.

The judge found that Reality Winner acted with premeditation. Before leaving the Air Force, she had researched what could happen if a thumb drive was inserted into a top-secret computer, and how to anonymously send information to Drive-By Media outlets.

Judge Epps also found that Reality Winner wasn’t joking, as she claimed she was, when she expressed hatred for America, including wanting to “burn the White House down.” She was not kidding. He ruled she presents an ongoing threat to national security, and is a flight risk.

Now, Under Obama, leakers could simply ask for a government-paid sex-change operation, mount a left-wing public relations campaign and get out of federal prison with a pardon. Bradley Manning. But times have changed.

So for now, Reality Winner will stay put in a secure lock-up until her trial. Sometimes, folks, reality bites — and it can hurt, you know, if it is in the wrong place.